Equality in all Beings is the sign of the Free.

The 'Bundle of joy unearth' was the six photographs of Swamiji taken in 1893 after the Parliament days. One of which is very famous and familiar to us in which Swamiji is standing with arms folded across His chest. This photograph was used as a colour poster during the Parliament days. The bundle contained this photo along with other 5 pictures which were autographed by Swamiji. Think of the joy Sister Gargi must have felt when she got these pictures from Swami Vishwananda. These are all having original Sanskrit mottoes written in Bengali script and inscribed with English letters. The transcript on all SIX photographs goes as follows:

1. 'Ajaramaravat prajnah vidyam arthancha chintayetGrihita' - iva kesheshu     mrityuna dharmam acharet:

When in search of knowledge or prosperity think that you would never have death or disease, and when worshipping God think that death's hand is in your hair.

 2. ‘Eka eva suhrid dharma nidhanepyanuyati yah’:

   Virtue is the only friend which follows us even beyond the grave. Everything else ends with death.

           

 3. ‘One infinite pure and holy - beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee’

4. ‘Samata sarva - bhuteshu etanmuktasya Lakshanam’ -  Equality in all beings is the sign of the free.

5. ‘Thou art the only treasure in this world’

6. ‘Thou art the father the lord the mother the husband and love’

Now you can find these photographs and connect with them easily. I don't know how to do it yet but i shall try to post those pictures on the blog shortly....

Wasn't the waiting for two days worthwhile?

Sadhana Diwas - Nay, Life itself has become a Sadhana, a Tapasya.

It is past 2 a.m. and 20th Nov. has begun......yesterday was 19 Nov.- Sadhana Diwas!! My mind has transported back to 1985 when i joined Vivekananda Kendra - a naive young 24 year old girl. What all i had done to reach to this place, without knowing what it was, for what it stood, who was Eknathji Ranade, ignorant about Swamiji, not knowing much about Sri Ramakrishna & Saradamaa, absolutely nothing!! Just a decision of not marrying and doing something for the soceity were only two reasons to go to Kanyakumari.

How life changed! Oh, how life transformed!! One cannot imagine!!! A new world opened - a world where people would love me for who i am and not for what i looked. Whether i was dark or plain made no difference to them. Where position, wealth, beauty, language, caste, appearance nothing mattered. Day in and day out, every second my life was changing, widening. My mind was becoming broad, everything around me looked new, not of the world from where i came!

Mumbai life seemed so far...the Air India Building, Bajaj Bhavan where i worked, that journey by local trains, standing at the door and traveling to and fro to office was long forgotten....only one thing was common - my dear dear Ocean which connected me to Mumbai with Kanyakumari. I am what i am today is first due to my mother and second because of my Vivekananda Kendra at Kanyakumari.

At Kanyakumari a shy shraddha became a comperer, learnt to give lecture with notes first and then without, learnt yoga, how to chant Bhagwad Gita, Vishnu Sahastranam. I knew & had read about Sri Aurobindo before joining Kendra but there Sri Ramana Maharshi, Narayanguru and many more saints, poets, authors, freedom fighters from all over the country entered my life to expand my vision. Was this all not happening to prepare me for my future?

Those 6 months of training, posting to Arunachal for 4 years and then 6 years to Pune---10 years of different life and vast experience!! Oh, what a life..! Golden days of my life which never ever came again. It only prepared me for the further sufferings.

 But this change made me unfit to live in the world when i got married. Even today i find myself unfit to live in this world. Kendra life had taught me only to do Sacrifice and Seva, Simplicity and Self surrender. Even today i feel out of place in my posh office surrounded by people who are selfish, pulling each other down, treating others inhumanly, self centered and full of materialistic approach.

I feel like a fish out of pond but then i am also lucky to have Swamiji to bring me out of this world. Today i feel all of a sudden all those 26 years have just vanished and i am the same old shraddha just entering the gates of VivekanandaPuram at Kanyakumari. I close my eyes and see the Rock Memorial clearly, hear the waves at the beach, feel the hot sand, the pointed pebbles pricking in my naked feet.

Again I want to sing bhajan, i want to sit and meditate at the Rock, at the beach, under the tamarind tree, want to sneak away and eat dosa at the canteen and relish idlis, beetroot sabji and upma with sugar in Annapurna.

This change, this transformation was all  possible only beacuse of the vision of this great personality - Man. Eknathji Ranade. My pranams to him on this Sadhana Diwas. Because of him i could turn my sufferings into a Sadhana, a Tapasya!!!

A Bundle of Joy Unearth

We find throughout the volumes how there were coincidences happening in Swamiji’s life.....right from Ms. Kate Sanborn meeting Him on a train to Mrs. Hale opening the door for Him. Not only in matters concerning with Swamiji we find these coincidences but even today as I read or speak or search for anything concerning Him these coincidences keep happening....Unbelievable!!! Don’t wish to add to superstitions but it does happen folks!

I spoke about the photographs of Swamiji suddenly coming into hands of Marie Loise Burke......what an interesting story it is , indeed.!!

The photographs and other other valuable material of Swamiji came to her through the kindness of Swami Vishwananda, incharge of Vivekananda Vedantas Society, Chicago at that time. The story is worth listening to and few changes go like this------

‘A young man who was not at all connected with Vedanta, had received from his grandmother a bundle of unpublished letters, photographs, and other material pertaining to Swami Vivekananda. He kept them as it is knowing that his grandmother had cherished them. Later he might have kept them or even discarded them but don't know how, one of his friend who was a student of Swami Vishwananda came to know of this bundle of old documents. One day she told Swami Vishwananda about the existence of these important documents. The Swami instantly visited this young man and found, with great joy which we can imagine, a veritable feast of the unknown material! That young man gladly gave him the bundle which originally belonged to the McKindley sisters, nieces of Mr. and Mrs. Hale. This unlooked for and unexpected discoveries gave hope to MLBurke and gives even to us today that eventually more hidden material regarding Swamiji will come to light, slowly pushing its way up through the years.’

 Still you have to wait to know about the photographs my dear Atmajas'....

Swamiji's Transcendental State during Parliament days

I do not know whether this happens to every one but for me, as I earlier said, as I read the volumes, mentally I am travelling with Him... sitting somewhere like a speck of dust and watching the Divine drama unfolding before my eyes!!! And now after completing volumes am in a hurry to introduce you to Mrs. Bagley, Sister Christine, Laura Glenn and Sir Hiram Maxim and so many so many more. But till you know about His assignment with lecture bureau we cannot move ahead. Still before let us look at the exalted state of mind in which He would often move away from this worldly life into the higher realms.

In one of Mary Hale’s letters, she describes Swamiji as “the great and glorious soul that came to the Parliament of Religions, so full of love of God, that his face shone with Divine light, whose words were fire, whose very presence created an atmosphere of harmony and purity, thereby drawing all souls to himself.”

Some photographs that later came to Marie Louise Burke show Swamiji’s childlike and tender state. There’s an unbelievable story regarding these photos but for that we have to wait till tomorrow.

In 1939 Swami Vishwananda got a letter from Swamiji’s disciple Sarat Chandra Chakravarti whose diary is published in the Complete Works. This letter clearly indicates His exalted state!! Some portion of this letter is as follows:

             “... Swamiji once told me that one moonlight night when he was on the shore of Lake Michigan his mind began to merge in Brahman. Suddenly he saw Sri Ramakrishna and he remembered the work for which he had come to this world, and then his mind came down and again turned toward the fulfillment of his mission. I recorded this in my diary, but I did not think it necessary to make it public; therefore I have not published it as yet. I am letting only you know...”

During and after Parliament Swamiji lived in such a transcendental state when the world was His for asking!!! He was in demand everywhere and all the doors of the rich, the intellectual, the brilliant and the socially prominent, were all open to Him. But His difficulty was in not lifting His mind above the World  but to hold it down for the sake of his work. In the initial period in America the difficulty was rather more eminent as the above state occurred to Him always. Sister Nivedita  puts it aptly about Swamiji’s this state  –

“The Swami never seemed, it must be remembered, to be doing tapasya, but his whole life was a concentration so intense that for any one else it would have been a most terrible tapasya. When he first went to America, it was extremely difficult for him to control the momentum that carried him into meditation. "When he sits down to meditate," had said one whose guest he was in India, "in two minutes he feels nothing, though his body be black with mosquitoes." With this habit thus deeply ingrained, he landed in America, that country of railways and tramways, and complicated engagement lists, and at first it was no uncommon thing for him to be carried two or three times round a tram circuit, only disturbed periodically by the conductor asking for the fare. He was very much ashamed of such occurrences, however, and worked hard to overcome them.”

Chicago and Outside...

In Chicago Swamiji stayed for a long time giving lectures in churches, clubs, city homes, parlours etc. From His letter we know that He spoke on Buddhism at Ladies’ Fortnightly Club on 27 October1893. This club avoided publicity hence we don’t have any printed information from the newspaper. But from ‘Tribune’ we come to know that the Fortnightly Club had its first meeting and lecture by Swamiji on Buddhism at Hotel Richelieu which is recorded in the Club’s yearbook of 1893. Now the hotel is demolished and this is what we know of Swamiji’s engagements in Chicago.

But regarding His lectures in the neighbouring towns we can gather from the newspaper reports.

Prof. Wright’s friend Dr. Bradley lived at Evanston which was on north of Chicago. At the Parliament there was Dr. Carl Von Bergen, a representative from Scandinavia, Sweden who spoke only once. He stated that Sweden’s Christian Church had a broad and tolerant outlook towards all religions. These two fellow delegates became friends and later we find them having lunch together more than once.

On 29^th Sept.1893 the ‘Chicago Evening Journal’ announced -

             “ALTRUISM OF CHRISTIANITY”

             It Will Be Contrasted with Hindoo Ethics in Lectures at Evanston.

             Suami Vivekananda, a representative from India to the recent World's Parliament of Religions, and Dr. Carl Von Bergen, a representative from Scandinavia, will give three lectures in Evanston beginning tomorrow evening. The other lectures will be given on Tuesday and Thursday evenings of next week in the Congregational Church. The subjects for Saturday evenings are "Altruism in Christianity; illustrated by the life of Catherine of Siena, the herald of pure Christianity in the middle ages," by Dr. Von Bergen; "Hindu Altruism," by Suami Vivekananda. Tuesday evening, "Monism," Suami Vivekananda; "Lord Shaftesbury, the most earnest philanthropist of our age," Dr. Von Bergen. On this evening John W. Hutchinson will sing a number of the old time songs which have made him so famous. Thursday evening, "Huldine Beamish: the founder of the Edelweiss," Dr. Von Bergen. "Reincarnation," Suami Vivekananda.

Exactly when did He sign up with the Lecture Bureau we do not know. But i dread now to tell all hereafter in what way this bureau literally made Him run around the places and minted money at His health's cost. 

 I wept when i read about His physical exhaustion... let us read tomorrow.

Vivekananda the Vivid

We are indeed very fortunate to have two unpublished letters of Swamiji to Prof. Wright. out of which one we read yesterday. These letters are important because they don’t only tell us about His activities in Chicago but also the luminous state of His mind during the early days of His American mission.

We were always doubtful about how long did He stay in Chicago before He started moving out to give lectures? There were many gaps in Swamiji’s biographies regarding His whereabouts during the last part of 1893 and the whole of 1894. Though we knew that He toured the Midwest and East lecturing and moving with the lecture bureau and also independently, we just got glimpses of Him here and there.

What we really miss even today is the innumerable conversations, meetings with people, private interviews He must have given during this period. We also are helpless in knowing the infinite spiritual experiences He must have had !!!

Let us peep little bit into His post Parliament activities.  From Cornelia Conger we now know that how interested Swamiji was in the American schools and about the education He wanted for us in India, especially for we girls! In this connection He visited a famous school ‘Cook County Normal School’ run by Principal Col. Francis Wayland Parker who had introduced progressive educational principles in Boston and then in Chicago.

As I always like to see Swamiji with the children and love to know their reactions this story again is very important for us. There was a young girl and let us know from a child how she saw Swamiji. This story first came in the 'Prabuddha Bharat' in Sep.1933 in an article written by Mrs. Henrietta Holmes Earl. Let us hear from her directly –

“I think of Vivekananda always as "Vivekananda the Vivid." And perhaps that is so because for a few brief moments I looked into his eyes. It happened when I, a small child, was a pupil in the school of which Col. Francis W. Parker was the head. Several of our schools are named after him, and his influence on education and thought was so great that he may be classed as a prophet of education. His work was known in far countries, and children came to his school from many lands with their parents who returned to their foreign homes to teach his methods. Among this group of foreign students was a Hindu family, the son being in my class. Each morning the entire school assembled for Chapel and often a brief talk by some distinguished visitor was heard. 

On one of these occasions we were all fascinated by the spectacle of our tall Col. Parker ushering in another stately man who was dressed in flowing robes and turban. We sang, and Col. Parker read a prayer. Then the Swami spoke to us. I was too little to remember what he said, but I do remember how quiet the big room was, and how brilliant his eyes and vibrant his voice. When his talk was over he too said a prayer, and then he and Col. Parker walked down together from the platform through the assembly hall.


The Hindu boy next to me sat in an aisle seat, and, as the Swami passed him, bent and kissed his robe. I was so surprised at such a thing that I whispered to the boy, "Why did you do that? Who is he?" "The man is Swami Vivekananda, a great saint from my country," he said. "But," said I, "there are no saints any more." "Not here in your country," he replied, "but we still have them in India."

One Who Guides Me on the Snow Tops of Himalayas Help & Guide Me Here!

Oh, how I am missing being with Swamiji...have to find a solution to have a laptop so that i can access the blog whenever i wish. Life feels empty without Him.

It is very interesting to know Swamiji’s state of mind during this period. But before going any further I would like to give one letter as it is by Swamiji to Prof. Wright whom Swamiji lovingly calls Adhyapakji. As per Marie Louise Burke this letter was unpublished before and I do not know whether it is published even now.

I have quoted a part of it earlier from this letter as I just love to read it. And I feel it is very important that you all too read it...again and again like me!!!!!

“Dear Adhyapakji -

             I do not know what you are thinking of my long silence. In the first place I dropped in on the Congress in the eleventh hour. And quite unprepared and that kept me very very busy for some time. Secondly I was speaking almost every day in the Congress and had no time to write and last and greatest of all - my kind friend I owe so much to you that it would have been an insult to your Ahetuka (unselfish) friendship to have written you business like letters in a hurry. The Congress is now over.

             Dear brother I was so so afraid to stand before that great assembly of fine speakers and thinkers from all over the world and speak but the Lord gave me strength and I almost every day heroically (?) faced the platform and the audience. If I have done well He gave me the strength for it if I have miserably failed - i knew that before hand for I am hopelessly ignorant. Your friend prof. Bradley was very kind to me and he always cheered me on And oh! everybody is so kind here to me who am nothing that it is beyond my power of expression. Glory unto Him in the highest in whose sight the poor ignorant monk from India is the same as the learned divines of this mighty land. And how the Lord is helping me every day of my life brother - i sometimes wish for a life of million million ages to serve Him through the world dressed in rags and fed by charity.

             Oh how I wished that you were here to see some of our sweet ones from India - the tender hearted Buddhist Dhammapala the orator Mazoomdar and realize that in that far off and poor India there are hearts that beat in sympathy to yours, born and brought up in this mighty - and great country.

             My eternal respects to your holy wife and to your sweet children my eternal love and blessings.

Col Higginson a very broad man told me that your daughter had written to his daughter about me and he was very sympathetic to me. I am going to Evanston tomorrow and hope to see prof. Bradley there.

May He make us all more and more pure and holy so that we may live a perfect spiritual life even before throwing off this earthly body.

 Vivekananda

  

  [The letter continues on a separate sheet of paper:]

I am now going to be reconciled to my life here. All my life I have been taking every circumstance as coming from him and calmly adapt myself to it. At first in America I was almost out of my water I was afraid I would have to give up the accustomed way of being guided by the Lord and cater for myself - and what a horrid piece of mischief and ingratitude was that. I now clearly see that He who was guiding me on the snow tops of the Himalayas and the burning planes of India is here to help me and guide me. Glory unto Him in the highest. So I have calmly fallen in my old ways. Some body or other gives me a shelter and food some body or other comes to ask me to speak about Him and I know He sends them and mine is to obey. And then He is supplying my necessities and His will be done.

"He who rests [in] Me and gives up all other self assertion and struggles I carry to him whatever he needs" Gita.

So it is in Asia So in Europe So in America for is He not here also? And if He does not I only would take for granted that He wants that I should lay aside this three minutes body of clay - and hope to lay it down gladly -

We may or may not meet brother. He knows. You are great learned and Holy. I dare not preach to you or your wife - but to your children - I quote these passages from the Vedas -

"The four Vedas, Sciences, languages, philosophy and all other learnings are only ornamental the real learning - the true Knowledge is that which enables us to reach him who is unchangeable in His love"

"How real, how tangible, how visible is He through whom the skin touches the eyes see and the world gets its reality"

             "Hearing Him nothing remains to be heard

             Seeing Him nothing remains to be seen

             Attaining Him nothing remains to be attained"

             "He is the eye of our eyes the ear of our ears the

             Soul of our Souls."

He is nearer to you my dears than even your father and mother - you are innocent and pure as flowers - remain so and He will reveal Himself unto you. Dear Austin when you are playing there is another playmate playing with you who loves you more than anybody else and oh He is so full of fun. He is always playing - sometimes with great big balls which we call the sun and earth and sometimes with little children like you and laughing and playing with you.

How funny it would be to see him and play with Him my dear think of it.

Dear Adhyapakji, I am moving about just now - only when I come to Chicago - i always go to see Mr. and Mrs. Lyons [Lyon] one of the noblest couples I have seen here. If you would be kind enough to write to me kindly address it to the care of Mr. John B. Lyons 262 Michigan Ave Chicago.

"He who gets hold of the One in this world of many The one constant existence in a world of flitting shadows - the One life in a world of Death - he alone crosses this sea of misery and struggle. None else none else" Vedas

             "He who is the Brahman of the Vedantins Ishwara of the Naiyayikas, Purusha of the Sankhyas, cause of the Mimamsakas Law of the Buddhists absolute zero of the Atheists and love infinite unto those that love, may [He] take us all under His merciful protection"

             Udayanacharya

(a great philosopher of the Nyaya or Dualistic school and this is the Benediction pronounced at the very beginning of his wonderful book "Kusumanjali a handful of flowers" in which He attempts to establish the existence of a personal creator and moral ruler of infinite love independently of revelation.) '

             Your ever grateful friend

             Vivekananda

My Pillars of Strength - Thakur, Maa, Swamiji and my Mother

On my wedding day Sunilji Chincholkar came to bless us. He is a saintly person and renowned speaker on 'Dasbodh' and 'Samarth Ramdas' in Maharashtra.He said to me in Marathi "Agdi Shiv Parvati saarkha joda distoy" means this couple looks like 'Shiva-Parvati'. I kept wondering about his comment because usually people will say 'the couple looks like 'Lakshmi-Narayan' the God and Goddess of wealth.

Within a few days and even later i came to know how true his words were. The Lord Shiva and Mother Parvati live on Mount Kailas and do not possess any material wealth. Mother Parvati has sons Ganesh and Kartikeya who are actually not born to her. Neither i nor Sudhir had the qualities of 'Shiv-Parvati' but how true it became in other matters. When i met Sunilji ater few years i asked him why did he say so? He too said he didn't know but that, these are His mysterious ways, isn't it?

When due to various reasons we came to know that we ever won't have a child, i became upset and would often keep crying. The tears would not stop flowing as though the cloud had burst. I always  feel that the mental agony and pain a woman undergoes for not bearing a child is more than the physical pain she feels while giving birth to a child. Physical pain is seen and felt by her and others too but the 'aseem dukha', the intense          sorrow of a woman who cannot be a mother is unseen and ignored by each and everyone. 

I must have read Holy Mother more during this period than any other time. That time i used to teach in a school called 'Sandipani' in Nagpur and was the class teacher for V standard. My mother finally said, "Shraddha,  if these 40 children whom you teach in a class remember you for next 40 years then you have achieved motherhood. Now a days even the real children forget their parents during their lifetime. Don't grieve and stop crying."  Her words brought a great change in me and am sure my school children whom i taught will never forget me.

Today this is for Holy Mother, Swamiji, Sri Ramakrishna and my mother who are always with me in every situation.